«The bed of a railway cutting / has tidy sheets. The steel-blue / parallel tracks ruled out / as neatly as staves of music. And over them people are driven / like possessed creatures from Pushkin / whose piteous song has been silenced. / Look, they’re departing, deserting. And yet l...»
«We are keeping an eye on the girls, so that the kvass / doesn’t go sour in the jug, or the pancakes cold, / counting over the rings, and pouring Anis / into the long bottles with their narrow throats straightening tow thread for the peasant woman: / ceremoniously, the house is filled with...»
«I’ll be late for the meeting / we arranged. When I arrive, my hair / will be grey. Yes, I suppose I grabbed / at Spring. And you set your hopes much too high. I shall walk with this bitterness for years / across mountains or town squares equally, / (Ophelia didn’t flinch at rue!) ...»
«Where does this tenderness come from? / These are not the — first curls I / have stroked slowly — and lips I / have known are — darker than yours as stars rise often and go out again / (where does this tenderness come from?) / so many eyes have risen and died out / in front of the...»